"Then you must have some wealthy men among you?"
"No, sah, not one. The town was begun, sah, by the kindness of Colonel Egerius."
"Colonel—he was, that is, he is—" began Hamilton, stammering.
"He is not a negro, sah," the old man answered finishing the boy's embarrassed sentence for him with entire self-possession. "Colonel Egerius, sah, was a plantation owner, befo' the war. Ah was one o' his slaves, an' mos' o' the people in Bullertown are the children o' those born in the plantation quarters."
"And he started the town?"
"Yas, sah, in a way. He fought with Lee, sah, an' my brother was his body-servant all through the war. When Lee surrendered, the Colonel came back to the old plantation. Some of the slaves had gone, but thar was quite a few left still. He called us to the big house an' tol' us to stay by the ol' place an' he would pay us wages. Some—Ah was not one o' them, though Ah see now they were right,—said the quarters were not fit to live in."
"But I thought you said Colonel Egerius was a kind master? How could that be if the quarters were so bad?"
"No, sah," he said, "Ah should never call the old massa kind, he was fair an' ready to help a willin' worker. But his slaves was his slaves an' they had no rights. Thar wasn't any whippin' or any o' that sort o' thing, but it was work all day, f'om befo' daylight till afteh dark, an' we lived jes' anyhow."
"How came he to start the town, then?" queried Hamilton. "Your description of him doesn't sound as though he were a man who would do much for you."
"It was jes' because o' that, Ah think, that he did, sah. He was just, sah. He said that while we were slaves we should be treated as slaves. Now that the negro was not a slave any mo', thar was no reason to make him live like one. He used to say the South was now pledged to help the nation instead o' the Confederacy, an' while he did not agree, he would live up to that pledge."